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The People Speak: When Television Makes History

On December 13th, a date I’ve basically had tattooed on my arm like
the guy from Memento, The People Speak finally makes its debut on the
History Channel. This is more than just must-see-TV. It is nothing
less than the life's work of “people’s historian” Howard Zinn brought
to life by some of the most talented actors, musicians, and poets in
the country. Howard Zinn and his partner Anthony Arnove chose the most
stirring political passages in Zinn's classic A People's History of
the United States, creating a written anthology called Voices of a
People's History of the United States. Those "voices" have now been
fully resurrected by a collection of performers ranging from Matt
Damon to hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco to poet Staceyann Chin.

The People Speak also showcases John Legend reading the words of
Muhammad Ali, Kerry Washington as Sojourner Truth, David Strathairn's
take on the soaring oratory of Eugene Debs, and Morgan Freeman as
Frederick Douglass asking, "What is the 4th of July to the American
Slave?" There are also the words of women factory workers read by
Marisa Tomei, rebellious farmers personified by Viggo Mortensen, and
escaped slaves voiced by Benjamin Bratt.

Certainly the lunatic right will howl to the heavens after seeing
"liberal Hollywood" perform the words of labor radicals, anti-racists,
feminists, and socialists. In fact, aided by the craven Matt Drudge,
they are already in full froth, campaigning online to get the History
Channel to drop The People Speak before its air-date. If it weren’t so
contemptible, their actions would be almost quaint, like a virtual
book burning.

But beneath the bombast, their hostile aversion “a people’s history”
speaks volumes about why we need to support this project. This is a
country dedicated to historical amnesia. Our radical past holds
dangers for both those in power and those threatened by progressive
change. We need to rescue the great battles for social justice from
becoming either co-opted or simply erased from the history books. Our
children don't learn about the people who made the Civil Rights
movement. Instead we get Dr. Martin Luther King on a McDonald's
commemorative cup. Because of our country’s organized ignorance,
endless hours are wasted in every generation reinventing the wheel and
relearning lessons already taught.

One reason Barack Obama made so many of us feel “hopey” during the
2008 election season is that he seemed to understand and even take
inspiration from our “people’s history”. Candidate Obama would invoke
the odysseys of abolitionists, suffragettes, freedom riders, and
Stonewall rioters. He linked his campaign to this history with a
slogan from today's immigrant rights and union struggles: Si Se Puede,
Yes We Can.

And yet this Presidency in practice has been like watching George W.
Bush with a working cerebellum. Send 30,000 more troops to
Afghanistan? Say nothing in the face of racist rallies held outside
the capitol? Tell LGBT people to shut up and wait for their civil
rights? All in a year's work. The Obama administration is now counting
upon the American people, to once again, quietly go with the flow all
while pretending we never saw this movie before. This is why The
People Speak matters. It's aimed at reclaiming our hallowed history
from all who would profane it: to resurrect our past as a guide to
fight for the future.

There are those who will wrongly see The People Speak as a kind of
"spoonful of sugar" approach to education. Get a celebrity to recite
the words of Susan B. Anthony and all of a sudden, we'll all want to
be history buffs. But this isn’t Hollywood "slumming" in the land of
radical chic. It is instead a bracing spectacle where our sacred
history is reimagined by performance artists of tremendous craft.
Consider the dramatic task at hand: they are attempting nothing less
than turning politics into art. If Zinn and co-producers Arnove,
Damon, Josh Brolin and Chris Moore pull this off, it holds the
potential to introduce a new generation to Sojourner Truth, Eugene
Debs, and perhaps most importantly of all, to the works of Howard
Zinn.

As Zinn himself once said, "Knowing history is less about
understanding the past than changing the future." This is the grand
adventure of Howard Zinn's life. I encourage everyone to come along
for the ride. Get your friends and family together on Sunday night and
experience the People Speak. Then take them by the hand and pledge to
be heard.

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Further

Having abandoned any meager pretense of moral principle by choosing "a record amount of money" that doesn't exist over holding the Crown Prince accountable for a barbarous murder - "maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!" - Trump has now doubled down on his perfidy by THANKING the Saudis for lower oil prices that also don't exist, telling America to "Enjoy!" Intriguingly, his final message to his blood-soaked co-conspirators could serve as the mantra for his loathsome reign: "Let’s go lower!"

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